Purgation
by Bryon Nightshade
Summary: Fluffy one-shot. Raven keeps people away as a matter of course. It catches her off-guard, then, that someone might know her so well. Well enough, at any rate, to give her something she secretly wants.


_Disclaimer: this story uses characters and situations under copyright protection. They are used without permission and not for profit._

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><p>"Azarath metrion zinthos..."<p>

Raven knew that practitioners of other disciplines just made sounds when they meditated. "Om", for example. It had no meaning. It was just a sound. Wasn't it better to say something that actually had a point? "Namu amidha buttsu" she could appreciate.

"Azarath metrion zinthos..."

Focus on the magic. Focus on control. Focus...

"Hi Raven! Whatcha up to?"

Focus on NOT grabbing the first object a shadow could reach and clobbering the nuisance until he was a green smudge on the floor...

Raven allowed one eye to open. Beast Boy's ever-exuberant face was all she could see. He was in her bubble. Again. She'd _told_ him about that.

Her open eye narrowed. "I'm floating in the air, channeling, and chanting," she said, voice dry as a desert. "What do you think I'm up to?"

"That can wait," Beast Boy said. "You've gotta come with me."

He wasn't leaving her bubble. What was wrong with him? Did he not remember what she'd told him? (If so, he was a moron.) Did he remember but not care? (If so, he was suicidal, or so reckless that it amounted to the same thing.) Either way, it was going to be hard to regain her focus with him pestering her. Humoring him seemed like the quickest way to get him back out of her bubble.

She let her legs unfold and touch on the ground before fully releasing her power. "What's so urgent? Is The City under attack?"

"Nope."

"Did one of Robin's experiments go bad and we have to do an emergency clean-up?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Did Starfire try cooking another Tamaranian delicacy and we need to plan our escape route?"

"Not yet this month. I've got that penciled in for Thursday."

Raven's brow tightened infinitesimally. "Then why do I have to come with you?"

"Because there's a super-duper surprise waiting for you when you do!" Beast Boy proclaimed. His arms were spread grandly; his smile seemed wider than his face.

Raven's right eye twitched. "I hate surprises."

Beast Boy sighed. The energy left him. "How about, because I want you to?"

That was a terrible reason. What was he really after? What sort of surprise was waiting for her? She hated surprises. She knew she'd told him that. If the bubble issue was any indication, he wasn't a good listener.

What had she done to deserve this? Beast Boy needed a hobby. Everyone else had a hobby. She meditated. Robin and Cyborg tinkered and trained. Starfire researched human culture. (Raven had to admit that Robin had struck gold with that euphamism for watching television.) Only Beast Boy didn't have a hobby. He needed one.

A hobby other than irritating her.

What she said was, "O-o-okay."

"Alright! Come on!" He grabbed her hand and yanked (she hated being yanked), pulling her behind him like a kite. Her cowl flipped down off of her head as he hurried her through the Tower.

It'll be fine, she told herself. Whatever Beast Boy had in mind would be terrible, and then she would be able to tell him not to bother her again. It would work out. If he didn't drive her to violence before they got there.

He led her up to the roof. There was some sort of plane up there, and nothing else. Beast Boy led her towards the plane, which was not her expectation. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"You'll see," Beast Boy said gaily. "That's the surprise!"

Why did he keep saying that word? It just rubbed in how much this was not her idea. She was completely out of her comfort zone by now, although she knew that her features were as expressionless as ever.

Beast Boy's smile seemed, if anything, wider than ever.

Did he know how much this irritated her? Maybe that was the whole point. He was a prankster. One of his most prized possessions was a whoopie cushion. (Starfire's appreciation for that gag bordered on the obscene, and made the other Titans mortified on humanity's behalf.) Maybe he was just trying to see how far he could push her.

That had to be it. Well, ha! The joke would be on him. She was Raven. Self-control was her entire existence. If he was trying to perturb her, she'd just take it as a test of her inner resolve.

There was no pilot on the plane. To her surprise, Beast Boy clambered into the cockpit. "Since when can you fly a plane?" Raven asked.

"I had Robin teach me," Beast Boy replied. "I don't have my commercial license yet- they say I'm too young for some reason. Like I care. A commercial license wouldn't teach me how to fly this plane, anyway."

"Wait a minute." Raven frowned. "You had Robin teach you? Then that means this is his plane."

"Yeah. And?"

Raven blinked. "I wouldn't expect him to... well, let anyone else play with his toys."

"Let's just say that everyone has his price." Beast Boy put on a face that was probably supposed to seem debonaire or world-wise. It really looked like your typical Beast Boy goofball look.

Raven couldn't imagine what kind of price Beast Boy had played to convince Robin to lend him an entire plane. No... she could imagine plenty. She decided she didn't _want_ to imagine what kind of price Beast Boy had paid. "What did it cost you to take this little joyride?"

"This? Oh, this part cost nothing. He just made something perfectly clear, first."

"What?"

"Remember that alien that tried to adopt me as a pet whether I liked it or not?"

Raven did. She, along with the other Titans, had spent hours chasing an alien green dog thinking it was Beast Boy. An alien green dog, she remembered painfully, that had been infatuated with her. The slobber... she felt residual uncleanness now just from remembering it.

What she said was, "Yes."

"Robin reminded me that he still has that alien's number."

Ah- Raven saw now. "And he told you that he'd call that number if the plane didn't come back in one piece?"

"His exact words were something like, "There's no animal big enough or small enough to save you if you mess up. Run if you want, hide if you want, but I will find you. And then..."" Beast Boy grinned. "He's such a kidder."

A shape-shifter, Raven thought, really ought to be better at impressions. Aloud, she said, "You work with Robin, right? You know he's prone to obsession. If he really did want to hunt you down..."

"It's not going to matter," Beast Boy said, working the controls. "Why would I worry about it going wrong? Nothing's going to go wrong. So there's no need to worry."

Raven saw serious flaws in that argument, but it was such a Beast Boy thing to say she couldn't argue the point. Her words would flow off of him like water off of a shape-shifted duck's back.

"Are you sure this is okay?" Raven said as she buckled in to the passenger seat.

"Totally. All the usual villains are laying low, the city's prisons won't have their usual breakouts for another couple of days at least, and Robin rescheduled our team-building exercise for next week. Oh, and I already did the dishes for you."

She'd almost forgotten it was her night to do the dishes. Beast Boy being more responsible than her? What was this world coming to?

"So don't worry about a thing," he went on as the plane's engines roared to takeoff levels. "I've got everything under- whoops." The plane went off the top of Titan Tower and lurched into a dive. Beast Boy pulled out of it before they hit the water. The engine exhaust blasted the water that was mere feet beneath them.

Control, Raven thought. Control. Let no sign of fear escape. Feel no fear. So what if this clown almost committed accidental murder by airplane? Float in serenity.

Only her fingers' deathgrip on the chair's armrest betrayed the emotion she couldn't fully suppress. Good enough, she thought. Anything more and she'd have subconsciously called the shadows, and there would have been consequences for Robin's plane then. She really didn't want that. Unlike Beast Boy, she didn't think Robin was much of a kidder.

"Sorry about that," Beast Boy said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "It always takes me a moment to remember that up is down and down is up."

Control, Raven told herself firmly. Control.

"We're going to be in the air for a couple of hours," Beast Boy said. "If you want, you can meditate some more while we go."

"What, you don't want to make obnoxious small talk while we fly?" The words were out of Raven's mouth almost before she noticed.

Beast Boy took it gracefully. "I just thought, since I interrupted you earlier..."

Regret was an emotion, too. Another thing that could react with her powers. Another thing Raven had to deny herself.

"Sorry," she forced. It wasn't easy for her.

"No problem!" said Beast Boy brightly. "But yeah, meditate if you want. It'll be a little while. Besides, I thought you'd like that more than 'obnoxious small talk' anyway."

"No need to rub it in," Raven said.

Beast Boy just grinned. Grinned, curse him. Raven's inner control wavered. Well, in that case she definitely had to meditate. She put her cowl back over her head, helpfully blocking Beast Boy out of her vision.

"Azarath metrion zinthos..."

It was hard to shut out the effects of flying- the noise, the vibrations, the change in attitude when Beast Boy would angle the plane this way or that. That was the whole point, though. Meditating for Raven was practicing to shut all those external things out. They couldn't touch her inner self.

If the outside couldn't touch her inner self, her inner self couldn't touch the outside. Even though it spent all its time scratching, clawing, aching to get out and release itself upon the world...

There were times when Raven felt like a passenger in her own body. Outside of her, a world founded on an ever-so-fragile order. Inside her, power, raw and primal and destructive, power to shatter that order and remake it as... as something else. She didn't really know what that would look like, but whatever it looked like, the cost was certainly too high. And in between was something that called itself Raven.

She worried to herself sometimes that she was meant to follow the power. It was her, wasn't it? What was wrong with following her nature? Choosing to honor the order of the world, of people, and choosing that over being herself...

It was no wonder she had to meditate all the time.

"Azarath metrion zinthos..."

It was like she was an old-time camera. On one side was light. The light was capable of creating an image with a short exposure, or destroying the film with too much exposure. The light wasn't being malicious. It was just acting by its nature. It was, in a way, the film's fault for being so flimsy. The shutter of the camera was the only thing that preserved the film. It preserved it by only allowing through the smallest amount of light that would let the film exist. That only worked if the shutter was was mechanically perfect. Any slip-up, and shoom!

"Azarath metrion zinthos..."

There was a bump. Raven felt as if she was dropping. She opened her eyes and saw that the plane was descending. Where, though? She looked around and saw nothing of note. It was a barren place Beast Boy was bringing her to.

The plane touched down. Beast Boy started taking steps to shut off the plane. He chattered the whole time he did, calling off his button presses and switch flips and checks. He was showing off, Raven decided. Not for her, exactly. Robin had probably made him say things like that to prove Beast Boy knew what he was looking at.

"And that should do it," the boy Titan finished with a happy smile. "Alright, now let's get outside."

Raven followed reluctantly. The sun was hot above them, especially for Raven with her dark cloak draped over her. "Beast Boy," she began, "something's been bothering me."

"Yeah?"

"You can morph into any number of flying animals. Why learn how to fly a plane? You hate anything more complicated than a video game."

"Don't diss video games," Beast Boy shot back. "Some of them are wicked complicated."

Raven rolled her eyes. "The point, Beast Boy?"

"Simple. Sure, I can fly as a fly, or a bird, or a pteradactyl. But no flying animal can carry you."

Raven's eyes went wide at his words, but before she could say anything Beast Boy transformed into a horse. "Hop on," he said. "We've got just a little further to go."

"Uh..."

"What?"

"I've never ridden a horse before," she said. "And aren't you supposed to have a saddle, or a... harness?" She frowned. Her knowledge of horseback riding was limited to a handful of Western movies she'd seen with the Titans (on nights when she'd had no say in the choice). She'd about hit her limit with "saddle".

"That's only for riding horses that don't behave," Beast Boy said. "I can make it easy on you. Just sit side-saddle."

Raven spent a moment wondering how one would sit side-saddle without a saddle. "How about I fly under my own power," she counter-proposed.

Beast Boy sighed. "Suit yourself," he said. He set off at a trot.

Raven followed.

She followed for minutes. Still she didn't see where they were going. Slowly the plane receded behind them, but nothing of note entered their view. Desolation stretched out before them, miles of it, as far as the eye could see. Lonely cacti stood like signposts and at about the same intervals. Scrub bushes dotted the landscape here and there, but never in numbers. Raven felt like she should have seen cattle skulls by now, but there weren't any, which made her feel oddly cheated.

Beast Boy's comments were limited to, "Hot day, huh?"

"Yeah."

That was the end of that conversation. Good gosh, they were talking about the _weather_.

"Okay, that's far enough," Raven said.

To her surprise, Beast Boy transformed back into his base form. "You know what, you're probably right," he agreed.

That caught her on the wrong foot. She tried to recover. "What are you trying to pull?" she accused. "There's nothing here."

"You're right," Beast Boy agreed again. "There's nothing here."

"And?" Raven said expectantly.

"And there's nothing here," Beast Boy repeated.

"You brought me here to see nothing," Raven said, as if daring him to agree.

"Not quite," he said. "I brought you here because there's nothing here."

"This is lame, even for you," she said. A current of anger bubbled up inside of her. She quickly quashed it. "What's the point of taking me to the middle of nowhere?"

"That was the point," Beast Boy said.

"The point was that there's nothing... wait a minute." Understanding broke through, sent her eyes wide open. "There's nothing here," she said breathlessly.

"Exactly," said Beast Boy. "There's nothing here."

"There's nothing here!" said Raven. She was growing more excited by the moment. Self discipline tried to quell the emotion, but she pulled back on her training, let the emotion through.

"There's nothing here!" said Beast Boy, openly egging her on.

"There's nothing here!" Raven shouted in triumph. One hand drew across the clasp of her cloak and pulled it free. She sent it soaring away from her body, up and out like she wanted never to see it again, and gave a cry of unadulterated joy.

Joy! Joy that made her feel like she was flying without magic, like she could leap across the sky and never touch ground again. She threw her hands up into the air. Behind her, columns of stone leapt up, too, as if trying to kiss the sky.

The emotion flooded her body and warmed her more than the sunny day. She laughed aloud. The ground rippled with her happiness. Oh, it felt so good! Starfire must feel wonderful all the time, using her happiness as the catalyst for her power!

Jealousy spiked inside Raven. It wasn't fair! Starfire had it easy. She was enriched by her feelings. So much easier to wallow in them than to suppress them. It wasn't like Raven had asked for this- she hadn't asked for her every feeling to be a ticking bomb.

It wasn't FAIR! Anger rushed through her. Shadow enveloped the columns of stone and snapped them in half. Raven bellowed her anger to the world and clenched her fists. The rocks were pulverized, crushed to dust by her rage.

Regret slammed into her. Shame followed right on its heels. She curled up into a tight ball and rocked back and forth, lips drawn tightly. This was why she couldn't get close to anyone, she thought. This was why she had to stay aloof, cool, apart. This was why she could never share in the happiness of her friends. Raven's shadow carved away the earth beneath her, swirling in a spiral like a drill bit, until she'd sunk below the level of the ground. She couldn't bear to be around people when even her happiness might squeeze the life out of them...

But the loneliness was unbearable! She had to see people again! The shadows launched her into the air. For a moment she hung weightless in the air, eyes closed, body drinking in the sun. Loneliness was an attractive force. It compelled her to seek people out. There had to be people that could understand her, people who wouldn't run away, people who made her feel warmer than the sunlight...

No, the problem wasn't other people. The problem was her! Her flight cut out and she landed heavily on the ground. She couldn't make other people change to accept her, she had to change _herself_ to be safe around others. That meant rigidity, absolute control, tension, and if that came at the price of anxiety, so be it!

The ground around her quivered and shook. Two rocks underground pushed against each other, displacing dirt up and around. A fountain of dirt was sent into the air when one of the rocks cracked.

But why would she demand this of herself? Clearly it was impossible. Who could stay that rigid all the time? And if you could, why would you want to? There was no point to it. Raven gave a vague sweeping motion away from herself. The rocks and debris from her previous outbursts slid away, rustling and rumbling as it went.

Oh, come on! She could do better than that! Determination filled her. She rose. Her face had taken on a flinty aspect. She raised both of her arms. The rubble soared into the air before falling with a clatter, like stone rain.

Hey, that was fun! She smiled and used her power to shatter even more of the ground around her. This time when she sent the rubble into the air, it was a dense field of rock. The pattering of its fall was like gravel being poured out of a truck. It was funny!

Her eyes widened. Funny? She was breaking things for her own amusement and that was _funny_? There was nothing funny about that, it was terrifying! That wasn't how someone as strong as her should act, not in a world made out of cardboard. She turned away from the rubble, covered her ears, and closed her eyes. She didn't want to remember that she'd thought destruction was fun. It was too dangerous, for everyone around her. Too scary! Behind her, her shadow rose like a hammer, crushing the rocks into dust.

And on and on it went. Emotions cycled through the girl, one right after the other. The full spectrum was reopened to her as she relaxed her control. Months, years, of repression sought to make up for lost time.

For once, Raven let the camera shutter open all the way.

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><p>When Raven's senses began to return, she felt that she was resting on her stomach, and something warm and strong was on her back. Slowly, she realized she was being carried.<p>

Bleary eyes opened slightly. Green. Beast Boy, then. She relaxed into it, let her body droop. Beast Boy seemed to notice that. "How do you feel, Raven?"

"Hmm," she said. She opened her eyes more. He'd turned into a gorilla to make it easier to carry her. He was making his way back towards the plane. It was hard to tell these things, though, because it was dark. At first she'd thought it was her eyes not being very open, but now she could tell that the sun was down.

She said, "I carried on for a while, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Beast Boy said, quietly. "But you had a lot pent up, didn't you? It would have to take a while to get it all out."

"I guess," Raven said. She wiggled her fingers. She barely felt them. Her whole body felt numb, like all the feeling had washed out of her.

She frowned. "Why did you take me out here?"

"Because there's nothing here," Beast Boy replied. "Nothing to destroy. No reason to hold back."

"No, I know that. I mean... why go to all this trouble? Learning to fly a plane... finding the right spot... this took a lot of effort."

"A little," Beast Boy said mildly.

"Why?"

"Because you needed it. I guess you didn't see what happened to the ground back there. You tore the place apart. That's all the stuff you kept cooped up inside of you. Raven, I'm a junk food addict, but I know unhealthy when I see it. If you didn't cut loose, you were gonna pop."

Raven buried her face in the gorilla-fur of her transformed friend. "So you were afraid of me," she whispered. "You were afraid of what I might do if I kept on like I was."

"Have I ever been afraid of you?" Beast Boy said, and there was the slightest hint of hurt in his voice. "I mean, you've tried to scare me sometimes, but have I ever been afraid of _you_? Of Raven?"

The fur was bristly, and not exactly comfortable, but very warm. It could have been much worse. "Never," she admitted. "In that case..."

"What?"

Raven didn't know what she was supposed to be feeling right then. She couldn't feel much of anything; all of her emotions were burned out of her. She couldn't muster up much effort or feeling in any direction. Even the scratching from beyond the veil had gone quiet, at least for the moment. She felt... purged, maybe. Or cleansed. Or maybe just exhausted.

She sighed. "You did this all for me, then?"

"Yeah. You don't get presents very often, you know. Not as often as you should."

Very dimly, she saw behind the words. She nuzzled Beast Boy's fur again before saying, "It's not very smart."

"Huh?"

"You shouldn't care about me. I can't ever give back the way you... I can't..."

"Don't worry about that," Beast Boy interrupted. "I didn't do this because I wanted something in return. I just wanted to do something nice for you."

"And it was nice," Raven said honestly. "Maybe... maybe the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me." She frowned. There was more to it than that- how few people would get close enough to know her needs, or her issues, and how few of those would go out of their way like this?- but she couldn't come up with a decent way to say it. Instead she twined some of the short fur between her fingers.

"I'm dangerous to know," Raven said. "You will be hurt, sooner or later. I can't help it. I'm not as perfect as I need to be to control these powers. And there are... other issues, too."

"I know better than anyone," Beast Boy pointed out.

"And you're still..." she shook her head. "Like I said, it's not very smart."

She could feel his smile. "Raven, if caring for you is dumb, I don't want to be smart!"

She couldn't do anything but close her eyes. Luckily, he couldn't see the slight upturn of her lips. "Well, I don't think there's much chance of that," she quipped, automatically.

He huffed a simian chuckle, before taking him off of her shoulder. They must be back at the plane, Raven realized, but she couldn't pry her eyes open to make sure. She felt him place her, gently, in the seat. There was nothing inside of her that could get her to move. She lay there, limply, as he changed dimensions and strapped her in and draped her cloak over her like a blanket.

He was close- so close. Yet so far away.

"You love me," Raven whispered, and even that took all of the strength she had left.

With her eyes shut, she couldn't see how he reacted, or what emotions were playing across his too-honest face. Instead, she felt something strange on her forehead. Pressure, with a hint of moisture.

Then it was gone, replaced by the sounds of him starting up the plane and strapping himself in.

Raven was asleep before they reached cruising altitude.

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><p><em>End<em>


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